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Just $31b from Buffett rule tax on rich, according to report

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill designed to enact President Barack Obama's plan for a "Buffett rule" tax on people earning more than $1 million a year would rake in just $31 billion over the next 11 years, according to an estimate by Congress' official tax analysts obtained by The Associated Press. That would be a drop in the bucket of the over $7 trillion in federal budget deficits projected during that period.

The figure is also miniscule compared to the many hundreds of billions the government earns from the alternative minimum tax, which Obama's budget last month said he would replace with the Buffett rule tax.

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The alternative minimum tax, originally aimed at ensuring that wealthy Americans pay taxes despite deductions and other breaks, has begun affecting upper middle-class families, and Congress acts every year to minimize its impact.

In an analysis provided to The AP on Tuesday, Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that a bill introduced last month by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., enshrining Obama's proposal into law would collect $31 billion over the coming 11 years.

Obama has proposed requiring that people earning at least $1 million annually pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes.

The plan is named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has said that taxes on the wealthy are not high enough .

The proposal has become a leading symbol of Obama's and congressional Democrats' election-year efforts to persuade voters that they are the party championing economic fairness. Republicans have mocked it as one aimed at scoring political points that would have little real budgetary impact.

"Now that we have this analysis, I hope the president will stop the class warfare and start leading by putting out real proposals to bring down our debt, get rid of the AMT and reform our broken tax code," Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a written statement, using the alternative minimum tax's acronym.

Hatch's Finance committee GOP aides requested the study.

Whitehouse said that other groups, including the respected bipartisan Tax Policy Center, have estimated that the proposal could earn more than $31 billion

"No matter how you slice it, that's real money that could help bring down our deficit. Most important: It's simply the right thing to do," he said in a statement.

Whitehouse's bill would require people making at least $2 million a year pay at least 30 percent of their earnings in taxes, though they could deduct certain amounts for their charitable contributions. The tax would be phased in for people earning at least $1 million annually.

Readers' Comments (4)

Is this the same Warren Buffet who supports the plan yet, to avoid taxes he keeps his "income" at 100,000 a year? The same Warren Buffet who was lobbying before Congress for Special tax breaks for airplanes another capital expenditures? The"Buffet Rule" like so many of the President's proposals is a collection of smoke and mirrors intended to do nothing more than raise taxes for more Federal spending.

Just goes to show how out of touch the left is with reality. The Buffet rule is a joke. What's needed is tax increase on everyone and real cuts in government spending. The problem is that the Dems burned their bridges with the GOP when they told Regan they would cut spending to go along with tax increases. The Dems go the tax increases and the spending cuts never materialized. That'w why we always get played with the "will save $xxx Billion over 10 years" garbage. How about real cuts today, this year?

$3 billion a year vs the number of small businesses hurt and the lost potential tax revenue for workers who may not get hired makes it just not worth the risk. Even if you drop the number from $1 million to $250k it still not going to have a real impact. There's only two ways to deal with the problem. Real cuts, cuts to everything, and to increase drilling for oil on federal land. There is a huge amount of royalties to be had by recovering the oil on federal land. Estimates are that it could cover all of our current debt.

Kind of puts a hole in the whole class warfare bubble. The Republicans have been trying to tell the lefties this for years. The dims just don't get it or have been lying. Real cuts are needed in order to get the deficit under control and America back on track.

The silence from the dims is deafening. The second "big" lie by obama shot down this week. The other being the actual cost of obamacare. CBO says it will cost at least twice as much as was promised. What's new?